


Scout's Honor

by out_there



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-01
Updated: 2005-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 01:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I never thought I was that much of a coward."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scout's Honor

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://scribewraith.livejournal.com/profile)[**scribewraith**](http://scribewraith.livejournal.com/) for betaing. Set just after "The Eye", so if you haven't seen that (and "The Storm" too), this will make no sense.

John found Rodney crouched over the third grounding station. Rodney was muttering under his breath with that ridiculous white bandage still wrapped around his forearm. Over the top of his jacket.

John rolled his eyes. "Your claim to genius is a total scam, huh?"

"What--" Rodney spun his head towards John and hit his forehead on the top of the panel. He glared as if that was John's fault. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same question."

"I'm fixing the grounding stations. I told Elizabeth," Rodney said, turning back to the glowing wires and circuits. "And unless you want to get electrocuted the next time lightning strikes, you'll let me finish it."

"You couldn't get someone else to do that?"

"Not if I want it done right."

John sighed, and looked out at the endless water. It was deep blue, calm and flat. Almost hard to believe that a few hours ago, it had been Atlantis's biggest threat. "You seem to be forgetting that Elizabeth and I helped you separate these in the first place."

"I'm not forgetting. The last time you got near one of these, the panel ended up fried." Rodney fiddled with a wire: it went dark and then lit up again. "And Elizabeth is still getting over the fact that you shot at her, so she's not in--"

"I didn't shoot at her." John frowned. "I shot at Kolya."

"You pointed a gun towards her and fired. That's, you know--" Rodney moved another wire and this time, it sparked. He pulled back quickly and stood up. "For those of us who aren't military types, these are big deals: having a gun in your face, being threatened with death. It takes more than a debriefing meeting to deal with it."

John stepped back as Rodney entered the code into the panel. The metal cylinder rose from the water, clicking into place with it's other half. They fitted together so well that John couldn't see where they joined. "You need help with the others?"

Rodney shook his head tightly. "No. This is the last one."

"So you can come see the medical staff now?"

"What?" Rodney looked confused and annoyed. It was a familiar expression on him. "No. I need to check the generators to make sure you haven't damaged them in any subtle but debilitating way."

"I took a couple things out and then I put them back in. It's all how you left it."

"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you, Major?" Rodney raised his brows. When John didn't reply, he nodded to himself. "That's why I need to go check them."

Legs slightly apart, arms crossed: John knew how to look intimidating. It never worked on Rodney -- not from John, at any rate -- but it couldn't hurt. "No."

Rodney let out a short laugh. "No? You can't stop me--"

His mouth was still open, but the words stopped the second John wrapped a hand around his right wrist. He froze.

"No," John repeated quietly, feeling the warmth of Rodney's skin against his palm. Rodney wasn't a slight guy -- no way, no how -- but the bones of his wrist felt delicate and breakable under John's fingers. "You need medical attention."

Rodney blinked twice. "Beckett has a concussion."

"Beckett isn't the only medically trained person aboard Atlantis."

"But he's the only one with an amusing accent," Rodney said weakly.

"You need your arm wrapped properly." John didn't move his hand. He didn't look down at the amateur and useless bandage wrapped around Rodney's sleeve either.

"It's fine, okay?" Rodney sounded angry and breathless, but John could see the fear in his eyes. "It's fine, I'm fine and fixing the generators--"

"Your eye is twitching."

"No, it's not."

"It is, and you're lying," John said quietly, keeping his fragile hold on Rodney. "Not that I want to feed your ego, but you're a little too important for me to let gangrene rot your mind away."

The tinge of panic on Rodney's face was replaced with utter disbelief. "Nobody gets gangrene anymore."

"And you'd know that from your years of medical training," John said sarcastically. "Which is why you wrapped your wounded jacket instead of your arm?"

John didn't give Rodney time to reply. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Rodney's shoulders and started walking him back to the nearest transporter. Whether Rodney wanted it or not, he was getting someone with actual medical expertise to check that wound.   
Rodney looked a little pale, but he didn't object. John wasn't taking any chances -- he'd taken too many in the last twenty four hours -- so he kept his arm tight across Rodney's back.

Halfway down the next corridor, Rodney let out a low hum. "People don't really get gangrene, do they?"

"Yes."

"But it wouldn't get to my brain."

"Probably not," John admitted, and Rodney nodded smugly. "They'd probably amputate the limb before that. Do you want to lose your right hand?"

Rodney looked down at the hand in question, stretching and clenching his fingers. "Not really. I can write with my left but I'm better with my right."

"There you go. That's why you need to come to the med bay. But I would have thought a smart guy like you would have figured that out." Rodney nodded, swallowing. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, and John almost tripped over his own feet. "What?"

"I didn't--" Rodney paused, his tongue flicking out over his lower lip. "I didn't mean to tell them."

"What are we talking about?"

Rodney dragged a deep breath through his nose and then his words came out in a rush. "I didn't mean to tell the Genii. I didn't mean to tell them about Atlantis, about the plan, about you. I didn't mean to and I didn't want to, but I did. I told them so quickly, so easily, as if..."

John took a startled step back, needing a little space, and his back hit the grey wall of the corridor.

Rodney dropped his head and mumbled into his chest, "I never thought I was that much of a coward."

This time, John had to swallow and force his voice to work. "You weren't."

"I've always valued my own safety, I know that. I know I'm not the definition of selfless or brave or courageous, but I never thought I was an out-and-out coward." Rodney glared at him, as if daring him to deny it. Then he pointed to his arm. "It's barely a scratch! It wasn't like they were threatening to cut my fingers off. But I saw my own blood, and there I went, telling them everything I could."

John took a few steps towards Rodney, making his voice firm. "Elizabeth told me what happened."

"She did, huh?"

"She told me you stepped in front of a gun for her. That you argued, that you pleaded, that you berated Kolya into keeping you both alive. That you didn't put the shields up because we were in danger."

"That was her idea." Rodney pushed his left hand through his hair, and John could see that he was shaking. "It didn't have anything to do with me, it was all her idea."

"From what she's told me," John settled his hands on Rodney's shoulders and very carefully didn't try to shake some sense into him, "you saved her life a couple of times. That's not the act of a coward."

"I needed her. I needed-- I couldn't have made the shields work without her, I couldn't have held it together without her..."

"There's a difference between being brave and stupid, Rodney." John sighed, finding it hard to believe that he was the one saying this. Normally he was on the other end of this lecture. "You fight the battles you can fight. You make the best of what you can do. You don't fight for the sake of fighting. You don't fight to go out in a blaze of glory. You fight to win and, if you can't, you don't turn it into an inspiring suicide."

Rodney took a shaky breath in and forced a smirk. "Why do I get the impression you've heard that before?"

John rubbed the back of his neck. "Because -- in the past -- I have sometimes fallen on the stupid side of bravery?"

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Rodney said pointedly. Then his expression softened into curiosity. "You were really going to demolish the city?"

John's stomach nose-dived to his feet, but he kept the grin on his face. Elizabeth had asked the same thing and he'd lied through his teeth and said he was bluffing. It seemed unfair to lie to Rodney. "Elizabeth had the codes."

"And?"

"If they'd shot Elizabeth, you wouldn't have been able to save Atlantis. You wouldn't have been any use to them. I had to assume you were both dead. They weren't going to walk away from that. I wouldn't have let them." He stopped when he heard the roughness in his own voice. There was being truthful and then there was over-explaining, and over-explaining to a guy as bright as Rodney was a really bad idea. "I was going to shield the gate and set the self-destruct mechanism."

"Because without me and Elizabeth," Rodney followed logically, "the city would have been lost anyway."

"Exactly," John said, wanting a quick change in the topic of conversation. His gaze dropped to the white fabric around Rodney's arm. "And now you have no excuse for not getting that wrapped correctly."

"As long as you promise you didn't mess around with the generators," Rodney shot back, walking again.

John took a few quick strides to catch up. "They're as you left them. Scout's honor."

Rodney's face screwed up in distaste. "You know, that's the most frightening thing I've had to deal with yet."

"What?"

"The idea of you as a boy scout."


End file.
